Ian_Grant

Richard, you have a far better understanding of the underlying physics than I. Have you any ideas of what I could try? I can think of (1) a midships skeg (which Javelin does not think will work), (2) huge rudders, (3) internal water pumps which could act as thrusters by sucking water in on one side of the bow/stern and pushing it out of the other via nozzles hidden u/w, (4) modify software to shorten oar stroke on inside of turn. I can find 6V water pumps for RC, self priming, but don't know what force they'd generate at 1 liter per minute. I now regret my simple flat-bottomed hull design. Experiments are required but I just can't find the motivation right now. I've moved on to restoring my old 70's Marblehead yacht just to get something in the water this season. At least yours went in a straight line! Mine always curves one way or the other. Thanks for any suggestions you may have! Ian

Looks great Glen! So you just apply those products (with a brush? a popsicle stick?) and they blob up of their own accord? Or do you need to do some rough sculpting on application? Thinking of my future Soleil Royale as a waterline model since the Heller u/w hull is so implausible........

Keith, she's a thing of beauty!

What about cherry planking with walnut wales, since it will be finished natural?

I hope so. I'm a bit discouraged about my Roman galley's steering ability, so I thought I could at least get this boat working on the water this summer.

C'est magnifique!!

Good work Bill! Sure is a crowded quarterdeck - bitts, mainmast, bitts, hatch, windlass, skylight, binnacle, wheel, and mizzenmast all chock-a-block. Still can't see how they could have employed the windlass effectively. I saw a rumour here on MSW that Occre might be coming out with a model of "Great Eastern"; that might tempt me to the dark side of wood modelling. 🤔

Moderators: this originally was a kit. I'm now customizing it. Please move it to kit section if you feel it should be there. Thanks! Back in the 70's the teenaged me built a British-designed M-Class yacht for RC. M-Class requires a 50" hull and 800 square inches of sail. It's taller than me from keel bulb to mast head. During my working career it spent decades "in ordinary". I brought it out to the cottage once to sail it for my son and nephews when they were about ten but they couldn't have cared less. Modern kids! Three years ago I took it out again. While it was reaching straight away from me, I realized I could see the white deck. How could that be? The answer was she was sinking by the stern! After she disappeared completely I was able to snorkel out and recover her. Fortunately the bay off our cottage is not too deep. It turned out that the rudder post support block I had glued into the hull in the 70's came away from the inner hull and water poured in through the resulting hole. The radio gear was fine after packing in rice but the battery was very unhappy. To fix the rudder mounting I had to cut a new hole in the aft deck for access. Looking at the resulting two holes, I decided to join them into one large hole and make a reasonable-looking cabin as on an actual boat instead of having just the little flat hatch amidships for access. The cabin turned out as shown below. I used a mannequin for a helms"man" to which I planned to add those black and whit circles like on a crash test dummy. I also repainted her with actual boat topsides paint left over from my sailing dinghy. Sadly the coamings within the cabin proved to be inadequate at keeping water out. After a short sail the bilge was awash and the poor helmsman was up to his bum in water too. I set it aside for the last few years. Recently I decided to change things up. I am going to add a new cabin with walls fixed to the hull, and removable roofs with gaskets to keep water out. I'm also changing the winch arrangement (finally) to an endless primary loop to which the sheets attach, instead of attaching the sheets directly to the winch drum. The old scheme constantly risked the sheets becoming unspooled from the drum with the resulting tangling problems. The scale is changing to 1/24 for which I need "G-scale" (~3") people (helmsman and female companion(s)). G-scale girls are common but a suitably-posed helmsman is proving elusive. I may have to order a "seated young man" and amputate and reattach his arm(s) to hold the wheel. Here are a few photos of the first refurbishing, and the new cabin taking basic shape in this second refurbishing. Old deck hacked up, new transom, and new (rather massive) beams in place for extended cabin. New deck applied. It's sheet melamine. Final assembly, repainted. The helmsman. New cabin started...... The new loop on the winch drum: no more unspooling!!! Old 70's winch still works; 18 lbs pull; what's not to like other than its size? It's well made inside.

Ferrus, your nice build is proceeding at a very brisk pace. Are you getting any sleep? 😉

It depends on one's definition of "painful". 😉 Well done!

Nice model collection!

Always nice to see a galley build.

I'm speechless with admiration!!!

Unless the galley(s) caught ships becalmed.....in which case it(they) could hammer them from ahead or astern. Like in "Mr Midshipman Hornblower"; a great book if you haven't read it. Nice build so far!

"Insulation"? Have you been auto-corrected? Looking good Bill! 👍

I had no luck with emailing Heller either, but their replacement parts can be obtained from "glow2be.de" who will have no way of knowing ypu got it second-hand. https://www.glow2b.de/# Click on "service" ; "spare parts form" ; and select pdf. Print it, fill it in with kit and part numbers, and FAX it to glow2be; I had no luck at all trying the email address but got an immediate response after FAX'ing them. Hope you have access to a FAX machine. Over here in Canada, all the medical system still uses FAX machines unbelievable as that may seem. My wife is a vet who pretty much has to use them too, so I borrowed hers. Good luck!

A typical Heller feature (or lack of?).

Just received this as part of my daily Smithsonian email.......... https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-bronze-age-ship-replica-made-from-reeds-and-goat-hair-just-sailed-50-nautical-miles-180984728/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=editorial&spMailingID=49999354&spUserID=OTY4MjUzNzkyMTQ3S0&spJobID=2742374672&spReportId=Mjc0MjM3NDY3MgS2

Bill, you kind of answered yourself regarding option (c). I wouldn't risk it. As for flush ports, I don't know really, but Endeavour was not built as a warship but was converted from a merchantman I believe. As such she would not have had the thick wooden sides to let the port lids into. Perhaps Occre shows the right thing? I thought you have the relevant AOTS, which probably has the answer. My two cents. Love your build!

Glen your models just keep getting better! I'm in awe, it was stressful watching your videos. Banshee looks wonderful in her bottle...... It was nice to hear your voice; you know how you imagine someone's voice when you've never met, or have a picture in your mind of people on the radio? As always you sounded nothing like my imagined Glen. 😊

Vic, I knew you were a ship model artist, but these sculptures of yours are high art! Christie's is waiting! Cheers, Ian

Bruce, now we're getting somewhere with diagnosing the problem. Don't quit just yet!! Either the ESC -to-Rcvr plug is the wrong way round (which doesn't seem to be the case in your photos) or somehow its BEC (battery eliminator circuit) cannot supply the Rcvr with 5V, or 6V, whichever. Two simple steps to take: 1) With batteries connected to ESC, use a voltmeter to measure across the red and blk/bwn leads of the Rcvr plug. Verify voltage and that the red lead is +ve. Now you know the BEC is at least working under no-load condition. 2) If that looks ok, plug into the Rcvr (ensuring that -ve is at the outside edge of the Rcvr) with no servo. Now use the voltmeter to measure across the centre and outside pins of any one of the accessible Rcvr connectors (BATT, the rudder channel). If no voltage then the BEC isn't working under load. Again, the centre pin should be +ve. Finally, if this is the case, get a little battery holder for four AA batteries and solder a standard 3-pin RC connector at its wire outputs (best to include a little switch). Plug this into the Rcvr's BATT connector, BUT BEFORE powering up, cut the red centre lead of the ESC-Rcvr cable; you DO NOT want it clashing with the external battery pack. This must work with at least one of your Rcvrs or I'll eat my hat. Here is an example battery holder: https://www.amazon.com/LAMPVPATH-Battery-Holder-Leads-Wires/dp/B07T7MTRZX/ref=sr_1_6?crid=2J7GEUHX775AW&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.xvysxN_iwRmZnDEIHaH0CstSi3dF1HSfoF64pfb4G2tttBIPg0VxFVjJR0UwftMVyg4vJJHcYGGdetzkpppLsWqped1FA3CkjsAqlbc5Rr0LOjOKGpoiT-mB1aA0SEhB-M2pj6GKi0uEuy_3kiswj1T5W3rNjmbOp1J-tJFlvZ22T1W8Mbuml-xjj6n5-IdrrTKgn3p3ETjERVmqHgB350LGuV54xgiqTUxvx1AKUvk.xR0jyb8jDBbU7ZeeAPU-as1qKxkgYF-ooXapWKszepU&dib_tag=se&keywords=aa+battery+holder&qid=1720799675&sprefix=aa+battery+holder%2Caps%2C151&sr=8-6

Well, the test voyage at the cottage was underwhelming, so much so that I came home discouraged and didn't touch it for over a week. She was unable to overcome even a slight evening breeze, moving backwards while rowing into it, and worse, the rudders had negligible effect. I have thought of some avenues to explore. To help the driving force: (1) Increase the blade area of the (smaller) lower oars. I'm going to make them even larger than the upper oars. (2) Simple software change to allow more strokes per minute. (3) Simple software change to increase speed of return stroke thus spending less time not in water. (4) More complex software change which I mentioned before but hadn't yet implemented: current software maintains a constant servo arm rotation speed which results in less horizontal movement of the oar blade as servo arm angle increases. Result is that oar blades move slower at the start and end of the stroke than in the middle. Need to modify code to maintain constant blade speed i.e. speed up servo arm rotation as arm angle increases. Should be fairly simple trig. As for the rudders: At the slow speed of the galley, they don't really generate much force unlike a rudder which is deflecting prop wash. I look at the situation and imagine the rudders trying to turn this long hull which is being propelled by oars spanning about 22" in total width. My only idea at present is to add a skeg amidships on the keel to act as a fulcrum around which the rudder leverage might be able to act. This is a must: if I keep having to backstroke on one side or the other (which stops the ship in its tracks while it pivots around its centre point) every few seconds I will consider this build a huge fail. There has been so much rain lately I haven't had a chance to clamp on a temporary skeg for a pool test. Fingers crossed. In the meantime I finally added the bow eyes and did some rigging. I drew eyes in several sizes and colours in Inkscape (actually I drew a single eye then scaled and/or mirrored, and edited colour to get all the rest). I considered printing them onto wet-slide decal paper, or even my wife's label paper, but in the end I simply printed onto standard paper and used "Mod Podge" to glue them on to the ship. This was after testing eyes on some scrap wood to ensure colours wouldn't flow when I brushed acrylic clear coat onto them. And the selected reddish eyes on the ship (not clear coated as yet, waiting for Mod Podge to dry). Some mainyard rigging including halyard, lifts, and dangling dark brown shrouds, nothing tied off. Sorry for the focus. Parral.

More a question of lesser accuracy than of quality, I think. Mine also has very impressive finish and fit.

Bruce, I got a reply from Mtroniks. He repeats my suggestion to try running on a lower voltage (ie one battery) to eliminate over-voltage shutdown from the theory list although he says it should run nonetheless. His contact info is at the end should you wish to discuss. ============================================================================ Hi Ian, Sorry you sound to be having an issue with our products. First of all, yes, a Viper Marine40 should be ok running the two motors you describe. Secondly, the Viper controllers will run on Lead Acid, NiMH or NiCAD cells. NOT Lipo cells. Lastly the Viper controllers do not have over voltage lock out so I doubt this is the problem you are seeing. What voltage are you trying to run it on? Have you tried it on a lower voltage and it works? If you can answer these questions for me, I’ll see if we can get you going again. I hope that we have helped you with your enquiry, if we have, would you mind clicking on the link below to add a review on google? We don’t have many reviews and it would help us with our online profile. If not, no problem at all! https://www.google.com/search?q=mtroniks+reviews&rlz=1C1VDKB_en-GBGB985GB985&oq=mtroniks+reviews&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIGCAEQRRhA0gEINDk1NGowajSoAgCwAgE&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 Best regards, Paul Kenningley Mtroniks Ltd Tel: 0044(0)1943 461482 http://www.mtroniks.net